Quasi has exactly two members, and the indie-rock band can afford exactly one hotel room while headlining clubs and theaters through the end of July. “Any increase in that — if we decide we want an additional musician or a sound engineer or someone to help us sell our merch — that pushes us into two rooms,” says Janet Weiss , the duo’s drummer. “And we’re not going to come home with money.
“Costs have increased so much,” continues Weiss, the former Sleater-Kinney drummer. “There isn’t that revenue source — records — to fall back on to get the show funded the way you would like it to be. It’s a combination of the economy and the streaming economy.
” To cope with the astronomical costs of just about everything on the road, club and theater performers cram into as few hotel rooms as possible; swap houses with friends to avoid Airbnbs; spend hours manning merch tables rather than hiring crew for the job; and postpone that long-awaited van-to-bus upgrade. “We went on a full U.S.
tour two years ago and found that costs skyrocketed while we were on the road,” says Peter Silberman , singer for indie-rock band The Antlers . “That really ate into our profits in a way that we did not anticipate, even in our worst-case-scenario budgeting. I came back from that tour really wanting to economize.
” Billboard spoke to nine 2024 touring artists, from singer-songwriter Caroline Rose to rockers English Teacher to doom-metal band REZN , about how they stay afl.
